<p>Yesterday was probably the most important day of my life so far. I had applied to 5 Ivies (HYP, Columbia, Cornell). Unfortunately, I was rejected from every single one of them. Naturally, I was devastated. Not to be cocky, but I thought I had a good chance to make it to at least ONE of them. </p>
<p>What's worse is ... I know other applicants whose credentials (including SAT/ACT, essay, ECs, leadership, recs, courses taken, GPA, etc etc...i could go on and on) where substantially lower than mine. And that's not just my opinion, others have agreed. I am worse off than them financial wise as well, if that matters. They were either African American or Hispanic ... and they have been admitted to 2-3 of the Ivies I have applied to! </p>
<p>All day yesterday, and all day today ... I have been looking for a reason as to why this could happen. I just don't know where I went wrong. I googled and found these articles: </p>
<p>Since I am an Asian (born/raised in Bangladesh till 2000), I am inclined to believe that this quota system was at work and there was nothing wrong in my part. </p>
<p>Please note, this is not a venting thread. I am curious, thats all.</p>
<p>same situation....
sucking it up and making the best out of it....that's the only thing you can do...most asians get ****ed off by the AA rule...i was too for a while...but hey ...we might be screwed with this round but at least we won't hear none of that "he/she got into because of URM..."...nope...there are "greater" things in life.....funny...cuz i use to say that with a completely different mindset....</p>
<p>Why were you rejected? Because the majority of applicants to Harvard qualified for admission, so Harvard was in the enviable position selecting from the pool of qualified applicants those who would contribute the most to creating a campus that's diverse in all meanings of the word: in terms of ECs, possible majors, nationalities, ethnicities, religion, sexual orientation, political orientation, legacies, private/public schools, regions, and, yes, race.</p>
<p>Many more Asians apply to top colleges, and since the colleges want diverse campuses, they aren't going to choose only Asians. They also want more than premed and engineering majors and people who swim, play tennis and/or play classical music, all things that a disproportionately high number of Asians do or aspire to do. </p>
<p>Colleges like Harvard also want political activists, punk rockers, creative writers, wrestlers, aspiring medievalists and philosophy majors, things that Asians tend not to be interested in (or if they are interested in those things, their parents don't allow them to pursue such activities).</p>
<p>I am wondering this too, because I am in the exact same situation as you :( I got rejected/waitlisted from all the ivies I applied to, and I went to school today after spring break to find out a girl with a 1900 got into Columbia. I know I'm just bitter, but seriously.. this girl is so quiet and boring, and all her stuf was substancially lower than mine too. Another of my friends from another school with ehhh stats got into Harvard I think, and they are both Hispanic.. I'm wondering if I got owned by AA or something. Not to say that those students don't deserve it, but I guess I'm just really upset and bitter about the whole thing :( And I hope I don't come off as racist (i'm not) or offend someone, because I didn't intend to.</p>
<p>"this girl is so quiet and boring, and all her stuf was substancially lower than mine too. "</p>
<p>You don't know everything about her including what her teachers may know -- and may have included in recommendations -- and what she herself wrote on essays or may have said in interviews.</p>
<p>Just because she bores you doesn't mean the admissions committee would consider her boring.</p>
<p>Harvard looks at more than stats. They could virtually fill their class with people with stats in the top 1% of the ACT/SAT, but instead, Harvard chooses to fill their class with people whose stats qualify for admission -- and would also help the campus continue to be vibrant and expansive in terms of its ECs and majors. </p>
<p>I have interviewed for Harvard for several years in my area. Most applicants where I live -- regardless of race -- have high stats, plus they are active in Model UN, NHS, and Mu Alpha Theta, things they seem to have done out of lock step because they haven't done anything remarkable with them (being NHS president at one's high school is run of the mill for H's applicant group). They also plan to major in bio or something else that's premed.</p>
<p>The applicants who stand out are the ones who pursued in depth and out of their own interests activities that weren't what everyone else did or if they did pursue the regular activities, they achieved at an extraordinary level such as being national president of something like NHS.</p>
<p>You are right Northstarmom, I'm sorry. Completely right-- Like I said, I am just extremely upset and bitter right now, and I'm being irrational. I feel like a bad person when I see her and get so angry inside LOL. I can't wait until I pass this "emo" phase.</p>
<p>I can relate man. I'm currently a sophomore, and I'm busy preparing myself for senior year when I hope to have good stats for Harvard and the Ivies. I was born in India, and live in a middle class family, and I really feel the pressure after seeing all these great applicants rejected because they're "Asian/Male" or "Asian/Female"</p>
<p>northstarmom ... my intended major was religious studies/journalism.</p>
<p>Not that any of it matters, anyways. Like overture, I am also very ... upset and bitter right now. Congrats to everyone who got in ... and for the rest of us on the rough end of the stick ... life is never fair.</p>
<p>I wouldn't be so quick to assume that affirmative action is at work here. I mean, it's a possibility. But then again, you are from Bangladesh and, in a pool filled with other "majority" Asian ethniticies, I think your heritage was an advantage. I don't think they get a lot of Bangladeshi applicants each year.</p>
<p>As much as they would like to deny it, I feel they do have some sort of quota, or else the majority would be Asian. If you read Harvard's history from the 1900s you will understand. I feel you pain, Indian here.</p>
<p>cheerchen...I thought of that at first, too. I made sure my application reflected my Bangladeshi side. If they really needed BANGLADESHIS and not ASIANS ... then I probably would have been in. Ah, the grief :(.</p>
<p>akahmed ... I am inclined to believe that some sort of quota exists. Otherwise, there is no way in God's green earth how some of these other candidates would have been accepted (and for all of you who say "maybe they had other things going on for them" ... I have seen their application personally, and I will claim as objectively as possible, comparatively my application was better. Many others have agreed).</p>
<p>That being said, I am not demeaning anybody for getting in. Its a great accomplishment, and I am very happy for all who got in!</p>
<p>As for applicants like me...there is always graduate school (I keep trying to console myself with that ... doesn't help much).</p>
<p>While I am not a supporter of AA, asians are certainly not "discriminated" against. The roadblock for a lot of asians is that their interests, activities, and achievements have significant overlap, and obviously you can't have a student body that is more than 50 percent asian, where at least half of those may all be at the same aptitude but are similar in several ways. It's up to those few who really want to go to the top schools to differentiate themselves from the norm and/or stereotypes.</p>
<p>OMG i seriously think race is factor. I feel that AA hurts asians. 2 girls both very good students, one was the student body president for our grade for 2 freakin years ! Both were white applied to Yale. deffered and rejected sadly. </p>
<p>Another kid (asian and spanish/argintine other half ) applied under Latino/Hispanic b/c he was biracial he had a HUGE advantage then all the other white/asian kids. </p>
<p>I heard that he got in Yale ! OMG I was thinking. I freakin jealous/bitter, that something like being latino was the hook to getting him in....</p>
<p>They have to keep the school interesting too. I wouldn't apply to a university with a 100% Asian student body even if it were the best unversity in the world and they told me my spot is guaranteed. </p>
<p>I doubt they sit there with a counter and say "well we've reached our quota so that's it for this year" but I think it's safe to say that ones race (or other factors one has no control over) do end up giving some an advantage whilst others a disadvantage. That's just the way it is.</p>
<p>agreed with rocketman, Harvard (or any college for that matter) would not say, "Oh look, he's asian and we already accepted 20 asians today" <em>rejected</em></p>
<p>But if you really think about it, they deny/waitlist 93 out of 100 applicants. If you take a look at the decisions thread, there are lots of extremely qualified candidates who are rejected. It's like trying to spit hairs...it's really up to each college's admin officer's discretion as to who to accept. That's why you see stanford rejects getting in at harvard, harvard rejects getting in at yale, etc. </p>
<p>With all that competition, any little thing, be it race, intended major, interview, rec letter can have a huge impact on a decision. If you have 2 asb presidents both with 4.0 gpa, 2300 SAT, 400 volunteering hours, glowing recs, but only 1 spot left... who would YOU choose?</p>
<p>Electrequiem, I believe an anti Asian bias exists. Read Golden's book, The price of Admission. Northstarmom has valid points: the Ivies will not be Ivies if they have 45% Asians like UC Berkeley, Asians tend to be math-science grinds, somewhat more one dimensional, they are rarely medieval philosophy majors, they are not about to study Occam or Polybius, etc etc. </p>
<p>Since Asians are higher achieving in terms of test scores and grades ,etc the pool is somewhat stronger. Yet, if the Ivies were not to have a hidden bias, Asian admit rates will be higher (does not have to and must not mirror Cal's) and should be higher. There is a chapter in a recent book on Harvard and the Ivy League (published in last 6 years or so, forget the title) that has given extracts of adcom comments on Asian applicants.</p>
<p>One personal example persuades me that bias has to exist: when my son walked into the college counselor's office at HS he was pressured to apply to MIT . This for a kid who scored 780 on Latin Virgil, 3rd highest score on National French exam (5 on French AP), perfect Writing and Crit R on SAT, yet all the counselor could see was his math/science scores (also high but slightly lower than language, history etc). She dissuaded him from all the Ivies, almost said he was not Ivy material, actually said as a vegetarian he would not fit into Princeton's eating clubs, said his teachers saw him as not verbal, this for the kid whose verbal scores were the highest in the 100 year history of the school. Reluctantly, he applied to MIT early, rejected, and to all Ivies, got into 4 of them. So, if she has this bias, I am confident other adcoms on the other side of the table have, too.</p>
<p>The story above suggests that there is no bias at the Ivies, though the high school GC has one. He got into 4 Ivies, for pete's sake! Where is the bias there?</p>
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[quote]
With all that competition, any little thing, be it race, intended major, interview, rec letter, mixing up two colleges in an e-mail can have a huge impact on a decision. If you have 2 asb presidents both with 4.0 gpa, 2300 SAT, 400 volunteering hours, glowing recs, but only 1 spot left... who would YOU choose?